Meditation Over Morphine: Which is More Effective to as Pain Reliever?

Morphine is constantly being administered as an analgesic and narcotic medicine to relieve and reduce pain.

But based on a research conducted, taking meditation would be a great help to relieve pain and reduce the discomfort being felt.

Researchers tried this experiment with volunteers as they put them in groups. They tried also using some creams and sham meditation to figure out the result of the two.

Now, researchers have found that meditation can be as effective as a pain reliever like morphine.

The study engaged 75  subjects in fine fettle condition and pain free people before setting them into groups and testing their pain responses.

The volunteers were divided into four groups  such mindfulness meditation, placebo or 'sham' meditation, a placebo cream of petroleum jelly and a control group who had nothing.

They have undergone some series of brain scans while heated probe was pressed against to their skin until they have fully reached the painful heat of 49ºC (120℉).

After the test and runs, people were inquired to rate the physical sensation, the pain intensity, and the pain unpleasantness - their emotional responses.

Scans were placed on those volunteers taught the right way breathing and relaxation guide and technique and it showed a calming part of brain which responds to the pain.

Based on the latest research made by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in North Carolina, they have found that during meditation itself, this specific part of the brain seemed to be turned off and not functioning at all.

But the mindfulness meditation group testified that pain intensity was lowered by 27 percent and by 44 percent for the emotional aspect of pain.  

Past studies had indicated that the opioid morphine reduces physical pain by 22 per cent only.

On the other hand, Journal of Neuroscience reported that placebo cream reduced the sensation of pain by 11 percent and emotional aspect by 13 percent.

It was added that, this study is the first to show that mindfulness meditation is mechanistically distinct and produces pain relief above and beyond the analgesic effects seen with either placebo cream or sham meditation.

However, given this study, they were pain free volunteers during the examination and they cant categoried as chronic patients at this moment.

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